Memory Lane: The very 1st Bruinou.com website!

This is what the very first Bruinou.com website looked like, when I started it back in December 2000. As you can see a heck of a lot has changed as we tried various platforms, formats and designs. (Click here to view the first website as it appeared a few years ago)

I remember giving the brief to the web designer that designed the first website (many thanks to my old colleague Justin Holfeld for setting the wheels in motion). That simple step of launching Bruinou.com culminated in a series of life changing events that I am eternally grateful to have been able to share with all of you. Bruinou.com has become a labour of love and over the years, it has grown, morphed, changed, expanded and basically become a part of people’s lives in a very positive and uplifting way.

Believe me when I say that things have not been at all easy in getting them to this stage. We’ve always had to battle the doubters, the stone-throwers, the detractors, the angry, the confused and the indifferent. The first Bruinou.com website had a roadsign system representing its navigation menu. This was indicative of the fact that at the time I started Bruinou.com, I was embarking on a journey.

I was’nt exactly sure which direction to take and there were no signs telling me how long it would take to get there. Being at the helm of Bruinou.com, I’ve realised that pioneering an entity that is to all intents and purposes, an explicitly, proudly “Coloured” empowerment initiative meant that I would travel the road less traveled; that I would have to fight against some very negative stereotypes, operating within a space that existing media structures have completely ignored or failed to address. I would be faced with stiff opposition from the very people whose shackled minds I was trying to free and introduce to a new, alternate reality and way of doing things. A reality in which our diversity was our strength and our “Colouredness” was nothing to be ashamed of or run away from. In hindsight, I wonder what it is that kept me going for so long, when it seemed nobody would ever buy into the idea that the Coloured community desperately needs to become more self-reliant and raise its visibility within SA society.

Over the years, I’ve expended vast amounts of money, thought, time and emotion into bringing this website to you. To all the members that have signed up over the years and made this their online home, THANKS. Your presence on Bruinou.com has made it all worthwhile. It’s your continual marketing of Bruinou.com via word of mouth that has helped us grow so steadily. We are very grateful for your support as we strive to earn and retain it every day, by continually improving our service, challenging the norms of our society and boldly pioneering a credible media space for the Coloured community in South Africa, for all our voices to be heard.

Bruinou.com is now entering a new era in its growth, one in which your continued support is needed more than ever. We have plans afoot to break the last few chains that hold us and to make the transition to other media platforms so as to expand our footprint and reach to include more sectors of our society.

Looking at the first Bruinou.com website, even today, I still wonder what the road ahead holds.